WEEPING sores on genitals, pus coming from the anus and red warts all over the body - these are the grisly symptoms of sexually-transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea and genital herpes.

And the historical ways of treating them are arguably worse, with infected people being subjected to hot irons to their bits and being forced to bathe in blood-sucking leeches.

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Syphilis - which can cause open sores on the face - chlamydia, gonorrhoea and genital herpes have been present throughout historyCredit: Corbis - Getty

While STIs are often treated with medication as they are caused by bacteria and viruses passed on during sex, UK experts have expressed concern about new super-strains of the conditions that are resistant to all treatments.

And without antibiotics - or when they don't work - people in the past have resorted to more extreme methods of getting rid of gruesome STIs, such as having lethal mercury rubbed on them and even having sex with virgins...

Slamming out rectal pus with a hard book

Between the 1600s and 1789, French doctors were convinced they had found the best way of getting rid of the oozing pus in the genital area caused by gonorrhoea.

Sufferers were smacked with hard books to try and coax the yellow goop out of their rectum.

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Women suspected of being prostitutes in the Victorian era - like M. Hackabout in the Harlot's Progress here - were checked for STIs before being imprisoned or used for labour in a workhouseCredit: Getty - Contributor

Blasting warts with hot irons and casting a spell

The ancient Romans believed the only way to get rid of genital herpes was to directly burn the infected flesh with a hot iron.

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The ancient Greeks prescribed lead weights strapped to the bodyCredit: WIKIMEDIA

A Greek doctor, Solanus of Ephesus, suggested that gonorrhoea was caused by a build-up of semen in the body, and prescribed lead weights strapped to the body for 'recovery'.

Just across the Mediterranean in Egypt, sufferers lay in agony while spells to drive away the "demons" they thought caused the illness were read out.

They also used ointments made from herbs and garlic in an attempt to ease the pain.

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Credit: Getty - Contributor

The ancient Egyptians cast spells and applied ointments made with garlic to genitalia

Dabbing poisonous mercury on sores

While we now know it's highly-toxic to humans, mercury was used for centuries as a way to treat syphilis.

This dangerous method cropped up as recently as the early 1900s in Europe.

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Medieval Europeans believed men who had sex with a virgin would be "cured"Credit: Getty - Contributor

Sex with virgins and 'sweating cloths' coated in lead

An Italian doctor, Roger of Salerno, made two rather horrific suggestions for STI treatments in the 1200s.

He recommended people should be bathed in a pool of blood-sucking leeches which he thought could slowly remove traces of the disease from the veins.

His other option was 'urethral irrigation' which would have involved a - probably unsterilised - object used to 'wash out' the problem.